Breakfast is three egg whites, lunch a piece of chicken and vegetables, dinner a seven-ounce can of tuna. Daily workouts at the gym last three hours.
They are drilled on how to walk, talk, sit, stand, smile and dress during nonstop classes and activities that often go from 7 a.m. until after midnight.This is the Miss Venezuela Organization, arguably the most successful beauty queen school in the world. In the past two decades it has produced 10 winners of top international pageants, more than any other nation.
Twice - in 1996 and 1981 - Venezuela held the Miss Universe and Miss World titles in the same year. Only Australia (1972) and India (1994) managed that once. Its latest victory was in September at the Miss International contest in Tokyo.
"Here we do it the way it ought to be done," says Osmel Sousa, the Miss Venezuela pageant's mastermind. "Other countries do it a little lazily. That's why they don't have as much success."
Cristina Dieckman knows the routine well. This year's Miss Venezuela runner-up, she endured nine months of beauty queen boot camp at the gaudy pink Miss Venezuela House in downtown Caracas.
"A lot of nights after I got home I cried. You feel so tired and stressed out," she says.
The 20-year-old blonde currently is in the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Beauty pageants are no small matter in this South American nation.
The Miss Venezuela Pageant is the most widely watched TV program of the year, capturing 66 percent of the viewing audience, says Venevision, the network that broadcasts the extravaganza every September.
The 1981 winner, former Miss Universe Irene Saez, is now mayor of Chacao municipality in Caracas and leading polls for the December 1998 presidential election.
Miss Venezuela "is like an institution. Nobody would dare to question it," says Moises Kaswan, the pageant's official dentist, who whitens, straightens and fills gaps between teeth to give contestants "Farrah Fawcett smiles."
The path to beauty queen glory isn't easy.
Training lasts at least six months. A typical day begins with two hours of classes in speech and answering pageant questions such as "What's your favorite painting?" and "If you could go on a date with anyone in the world, who would it be?"
Then it's off to the gym, where contestants lift weights, take aerobics classes and work out on the treadmill, stationary bicycle and stair-stepper.
Three hours in the afternoon are devoted to perfecting the walk down the runway. At night, another three hours are taken up rehearsing dances for the Miss Venezuela show.
Added to the routine are cocktail parties, press presentations, video shoots, fashion shows and fitting sessions with clothes designer Angel Sanchez, who makes the $8,000 gowns the women wear on pageant night.
Keeping - or getting - slim is mandatory. Contestants are weighed daily.
"Osmel can throw you out a day before Miss Venezuela if you've put on two kilos (4.4 pounds) and don't take it off," says Adriana Bustillos, 21, who represented Lara state this year. After months of crash-dieting, many women are bone-thin and dying for a scoop of ice cream.
"You see a bit of bread and you want to eat it," added the 5-foot-7 Bustillos, who dropped from 128 pounds to 114.
Venezuela's Alicia Machado made headlines last year when she went on an eating binge for several weeks after winning Miss Universe and gained 19 pounds.